Wind speeds of 220-240 kilometres (140-155 miles)
an hour were recorded in what officials described as one of the worst
storms in years.

Tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of
people in the southwest spent the night in special evacuation shelters
in a bid to avoid the massive casualties of previous cyclones.

Although officials said they were optimistic the death toll would not be in the thousands, they feared widespread destruction.

"We expect the damage to be enormous," said an official of the disaster management and relief ministry.

The
dead included an elderly man who drowned when a boat carrying 17 people
across a river in southern Satkhira district capsized during the storm.
The other passengers were able to swim ashore, an official said.

Experts
described Sidr as similar in strength to the 1991 storm that triggered
a tidal wave that killed an estimated 138,000 people.

Another cyclone in 1970 killed up to half a million people in the disaster-prone and impoverished country.

Bangladesh has since set up an early warning system and a network of shelters in vulnerable coastal areas.

The
head of the Bangladeshi meteorological department, Samarendra Karmakar,
said he was optimistic the evacuation programme would spare the country
the huge loss of life seen in previous decades.

"It is not less
severe than the 1991 cyclone, in some places it is more severe. But we
are expecting less casualties this time because the government took
early measures. We alerted people to be evacuated early," he said.

India
escaped the fury of the cyclone, which forecasters said would lose
strength on Saturday just south of the mountain kingdom of Bhutan.

"It's a great relief to us," said West Bengal relief minister Mortaza Hossain.

"Over
100 mud houses have been damaged and tin roofs blown off houses as
squall and rains hit the Sunderbans," mangrove forest close to
Bangladesh, he said.

Some 100,000 villagers in coastal areas of
West Bengal were returning home Friday despite heavy rain after being
evacuated to 69 temporary camps, he said.

The storm, which
reached Dhaka early Friday, weakened overnight and was now progressing
through the northeastern state of Sylhet, said weather department
forecaster Farah Deebaa.

"It has lost its intensity and is crossing the Sylhet region as a land depression," she said.